


I didn't know how (we took it in turns)

by clobf



Series: office supplies [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: ....and we were both boys, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), The Lonely - Freeform, its not rated bc im not sure what chapter 2 is doing and the discord is encouraging me so, what if neither of us had properly processed the death of our coworker we were kind of in love with
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 08:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24468223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clobf/pseuds/clobf
Summary: “You miss him.”“Yes, well, he’d hate that, if he knew.”The peace in the safehouse gives Jon some time to process, and grieve. It takes Martin a little longer.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Past Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Past Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker, somehow still not j/t/m im SORRY
Series: office supplies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767352
Comments: 15
Kudos: 99





	I didn't know how (we took it in turns)

They’ve been at the safehouse for a week when it first comes up. Martin’s had a week to adjust, to this tiny foothold of safety, and the warmth that seeps into every corner, and to having Jon at his fingertips every time he reaches out. He reckons he’s doing alright, considering. He’s been trying to write again, aiming at first for poetry and then for a diary when the words won’t come in the right shape. He’s been trying to read as well, classics from the village library or novels snagged at random from Daisy’s eclectic shelves (currently in his lap: a story about a Scottish girl left in a coma after uncovering some shocking family secret). Mostly, though, he’d been trying to weight himself back into his body, focusing on the feeling of the weird rough bit of the sofa where someone had apparently spilled something, scratching against his arm, or on the unconscious tapping of Jon’s foot against his ankle. Martin catches it between his feet and watches a small smile spread across Jon’s face.

Jon’s at the other end of the sofa, hunched over the paper, staring at the crossword. Martin watches him, the focus in his eyes, and the way that he’s picking at his right thumb, which Martin’s come to learn means he’s trying to work out an answer without any outside help. About four days after they’d arrived, Martin had leant over Jon’s shoulder and said “I didn’t know you’d read _War and Peace_.”

‘I haven’t- oh, damn,” Jon had said, glaring at his pencil as though it was the servant of the eldritch power. Crosswords had taken a bit longer ever since.

Here, now, Jon reaches out to the table and starts feeling around on it, without taking his eyes off the crossword. His cup of tea, still cooling, almost goes flying before Martin decides to interrupt. “What are you..reaching for, Jon?”

‘Hm? Oh, there was a pen, somewhere.”

"Surely we have more than one pen," says Martin, and Jon glares at him, expression ruined by the fact that their feet (in mismatched socks) are still tangled up together.

He checks his shirt pocket and then behind his ear, face clearing. "The- Ah.” Jon reaches up to pull the pen free, but it must snag on something, because it ends up caught in his hair by the little clip on the end. He starts working it free, and goes to stand, presumably looking for a mirror. Robbed of the warmth at the other end of the sofa, Martin moves his book onto the floor.

“Do you want a hand with that?”

“I mean, you don’t have to, I've got it-”

“I'd like to, if that's ok?” Martin reaches out, and Jon lets him arrange them on the couch, so that they’re sitting at the same end of the sofa, Jon in between Martin’s legs, leaning back into his chest. He rests his head on Martin’s shoulder, face turned into his neck, and Martin looks down at him, a smile twisting on his face. “You know, it would be great if you would hold your head up for me to do this.”

"You offered, I was fine," Jon grumbles as he lets his head fall forward, and Martin chuckles and drops a kiss to his shoulder, the crease of his neck, the side of his head. “Much appreciated,” he says, lifting his hand from Jon’s waist to get the pen. It’s one from London, creamy white with _The Magnus Institute_ printed along the side. “What’s the clue, then?”

Jon taps the paper. “Another word for mother of pearl, five letters. I think it’s nacre.”

“I thought we weren’t using the Beholding to solve crosswords anymore.”

“I-we’re-I’m not! It’s French, probably!”

“Nope, I’m sorry, no one just knows that. Hey, I get it, crosswords are hard, and you’re omniscient, it’s totally fair.”

Jon gives a sort of offended bark, and Martin’s composure breaks completely. He laughs softly, smoothing his hands down Jon’s sides in apology.

“Don’t worry, I know that cheating at crosswords is a crime far beyond your moral code.”

“You’re an awful man,” says Jon, and Martin can hear the smile in his words, and knows exactly the face he’s making right now, fond exasperation, and he wants to pull him closer, wants to rearrange them both so that he can see it on his face, can kiss Jon back into the couch and thread his fingers back through his hair. He could do that, he realises. He doesn’t, because they're comfortable, like this, and because it still takes work, reaching out. But he could, and he might later, and he feels that knowledge settle somewhere in his ribs, alongside all the moments like this that he’s been collecting since they arrived, burning out the fog.

They sit in silence for a bit, him focused on the pen, and Jon staring at the newspaper as his thumb strokes gently over Martin’s knee. The silence isn’t uncommon for them, both tired and both working slowly through the last year in their own ways, and it’s only when he finally detaches the pen that Martin realises that Jon’s gone very still.

“Got it, there- you alright?” he says, one arm wrapping back around Jon’s waist. Jon doesn’t respond immediately and Martin tucks his chin over Jon’s shoulder as he waits. It can take a while, sometimes, for Jon to pick out the right words, but they’d discovered early on that contact is helpful for both of them. Jon turns his head a little towards Martin, but he doesn’t look up.

“I, ah- I was reminded of something”

“Oh? Something bad?”

“No, um. Quite the opposite, in a way.” Jon doesn’t elaborate, and his voice still _sounds_ like it was something bad, but Martin’s not going to push him just yet.

“Well, you know you can tell me about it, if you want to.”

“Yes, I- Thank you. I’m.. I’m working on it” Jon presses a kiss to Martin’s jaw, and then turns in his arms to kiss him properly, soft and warm. It’s probably a little bit of a distraction, but Martin can’t really find it in himself to point it out, and settles for dropping the pen on the floor next to the book and threading his fingers through Jon’s hair again. If he’s making a mess of it, he’ll gladly go back to combing through it afterwards.

When Jon pulls back, propping himself up on Martin’s chest, the uncomfortable stillness seems to have dissipated. “I’m also wondering what you’d like for dinner.”

“I’m not sure I want anything for _dinner_ ,” Martin replies, grinning up at him. “I might consider having something for _tea_ , though.” The first week of being here, he’d ducked away from Jon’s attempts to look after him, from the proffered cups of tea and the blankets Jon draped over him when he’d come back from the village to find Martin asleep next to his notebooks. He’d shrugged off the concern, and tried desperately to repay the care, and to make himself small enough not to ruin this, until Jon had sat him at the kitchen table, hands outstretched, and said _I want to look after you. I’m not going anywhere. I love you._ It hasn’t stopped Martin feeling uncomfortable with the weight of Jon’s affection sometimes, but he lets Jon cook now, as long as he can still wash up, and do a few of the more fiddly bits when Jon’s hand is playing up. It helps that Jon is objectively the better cook as long as he has a recipe, and that Daisy apparently used time in her safehouse to experiment in the kitchen. They are very well stocked in recipe books.

“That’s a shame, since I’m only cooking dinner. There might be some leftovers in the fridge, though, if you want.”

“Mm, no, you lost the right to do that when we passed Leicester. It’s tea or nothing, Jon.”

“Is that so?” Jon plays idly with the neckline of Martin’s jumper.

“Yep.”

“In that case, just this once I will make _tea_.” He ramps up his own accent, sounding like he did in the early days in the office, recording a statement or when Elias would mysteriously drop by for a “check in”. Martin remembers being intimidated by that voice.

“Thank you for your generosity,” he laughs.

“Still don’t know what to make, though.”

“That lasagna recipe you found looked good, if we’ve got the stuff for it?”

A pause. “Yes, but we’ll use up the onions."

“Good to see you putting your eerie omniscience to good use. You do know you’ll need to get up to reach the oven?”

“In a minute,” Jon says, and he sounds so wonderfully disgruntled that Martin finds he has to kiss him again. Tea can wait.

//

It’s much later, in bed, that Jon eventually brings it up. They’re curled around each other under a duvet cover with two duvets stuffed inside to protect against the chill of Scottish evenings. Martin’s got his head on Jon’s chest and he’s beginning to suspect that Jon’s drifted off already when he speaks.

“Earlier, I-” he manages, before his voice stalls, and Martin takes the hand that’s resting on his chest and squeezes it gently as he waits for Jon to continue. Jon clears his throat and tries again. “It was… I was thinking about Tim.”

Martin takes a second to readjust. Considering the situation, he’d sort of been expecting a discussion about Georgie. Or possibly Daisy. Jon had been hovering between worry and grief for her since they arrived, and something was bound to slip soon. Martin feels a little like he’s braced himself to jump into a pool and found himself halfway across the channel.

“What about Tim?” Martin turns his head to rest his cheek on Jon’s chest instead.

“You know we were close, for a while.” Jon sounds a little distant, coming from above his head.

“Yeah, I know,” There’s another half to this conversation that they should have, but Martin can’t quite bring himself to raise it. He can practically hear Jon building up another sentence in his mind. He’s so cautious with his words, now, speaks as though one wrong phrase will blow this peace they’re building apart. Right now, maybe it will, Martin doesn’t know.

“This afternoon, it just..Do you- just after we’d all started working at the archives, there was a race.”

“What, on the wheely chairs?”

Jon chuckles under his breath. “That’s the one. I believe I commandeered yours for it.”

“Well, technically, I think Tim..” Martin trails off.

“Yes, he was definitely running it. I think to… relax me.” Even now there’s a thread of distaste running through the words, and Martin huffs a small laugh.

“What a weird idea.”

"Mm, quite.”

The day is filtering back into Martin’s mind, past the sleep that had been settling on him. He thinks he knows where Jon’s going. “I think I also gave you a pen?”

“A favour, if I recall correctly.”

“Well, you made a very noble knight,” says Martin, and Jon swats ineffectually at his shoulder.

"Anyway, I'd been late that morning and my hairband had snapped and I hadn't had time to go back for another, so I ended up using that pen, and.."

"And Tim took it out, or something?” It doesn’t surprise Martin. He’d once watched Tim spend an hour in a Spoons braiding Sasha’s hair while arguing with her about some book they’d both read, and trading opinions on the new _Star Wars_ film with Martin. Jon might even have been there as well, he’s pretty sure it was early on in their time at the archives. In the first year, at least, because now that he thinks about it, his brain is trying very hard to tell him that Sasha had a neat bob, far too short to braid.

There’s a pause, and Martin rests his hand on Jon’s arm, sweeps his thumb over the crook of his elbow in time with their breathing. _One, two, one, two, one, two._

“Look, it doesn’t- I’m just- nevermind.”

But Martin’s spent too long watching Jon box everything up, to be addressed at a later date. “You miss him.”

Jon’s arm slips out from under Martin’s hand as he drags his hand down his face. “Yes, well, he’d hate that, if he knew.”

“Does that stop it?” _One, two, one, two_. ‘Look, Jon, I know you think you made all the mistakes, with Tim-”

“I stalked him, Martin, I accused him of _murder_ , I took pictures of his house from behind a car like a, a killer in some old black and white film, and-”

“I know, and yes, the stalking was bad, really bad, but… Tim was hurting, and angry, even before all that, I think-”

“And I’m sure coming with me to serve an evil fear god made that so much better, especially-”

“Jon! Jon, just- listen a second, ok? I’m not saying you did nothing wrong, even though you didn’t know anything-”

“Martin-”

“Did you? When you transferred?” Jon’s quiet above his head, and Martin ploughs on. “Because, sure, in that case, you really messed up, you totally fucked us over, fine, but you didn’t, Jon, you didn’t even know what you were meant to be doing, let alone what was really happening, and it isn’t, well, it’s not fair to put it all on you, and actually, we were all in the same boat and none of the rest of us coped by shouting at everything, I mean…” He trails off, and Jon hasn’t moved, but Martin can feel his heart hammering through the shirt he’s wearing, some merch for a band Martin's certain neither of them have even heard of. It’s one of Daisy’s, probably. Or one of the things Jon seems to have picked at some point in the last year, in between being attacked and kidnapped and hunted. He still isn’t saying anything. _One, two._

Well, in for a penny.

“It wasn’t your fault, Jon. You couldn’t have stopped him. Christ, even if he hadn’t moved to the archives, there’s no way of knowing what- he was hunting the Circus anyway. It wasn’t you.”

Jon’s voice sounds so far away when he speaks, like he’s talking to Martin through glass, or a fog. “When I woke up, I thought... I mean, I woke up. And I’d been right next to him, so…”

Martin has a horrible image, suddenly, of Jon coming all the way back to the archives, still hoping- “How did you find out?”

“Basira told me. Pretty much right away, a-and she told me about Daisy and then Georgie was saying something was wrong with me waking up like that, which honestly she was right, I mean there was, and then… Then there was a statement. About zombies, of all things.” He huffs a breath, almost a laugh, if a laugh had been stabbed.

“Shit, Jon.”

“I mean, it had been six months for her, I just didn’t..." Further in the distance, voices and music drift up the track outside the cottage. There’s a few houses further down the hill, and they must have something worth celebrating. Here, in bed, Martin hears a hitch in Jon’s breath and gives in, working his way out of the blankets enough to shuffle up the bed until he and Jon are nose to nose. Jon’s eyes are shining in the weak moonlight coming in through the curtains.

“You miss him,” Martin says, again.

Even this close, Jon sounds impossibly small. “I think I’ve been missing him for a long time,” he murmurs, and there’s another hitch in his breath, and another. Martin doesn’t know what to say without peeling back his own bruised edges for comparison, so he draws Jon tightly into his arms, tucked under his chin as Jon shakes and shakes and his breaths turn to sobs and his sobs fade to whimpers. Somewhere a small, childish part of him hopes that if he holds tight enough, he’ll be able to wring out all the hurt that Jon’s managed to cram into his tiny frame, take it out with the bins in the morning and never look at it again. Down the hill, the party continues.

It’s a while before either of them say anything. When Jon breaks the silence, his voice is a little stronger. “Sorry, I.. didn’t expect that.”

Martin smiles slightly, moves back enough to let him speak. “In that case, it was definitely needed. How are you feeling, now?"

“Better, I- it’s better.”

“Good.”

“And are you ok?”

“I think so. I did some of my grieving right after the Unknowing, and there was a funeral I could’ve gone to but it actually felt kind of silly, what with all the cover stories the police were coming up with, and when I started working with Peter, I sort of let it go, connections and all that, but- _Jon_.”

“Shit. Sorry, I’m sorry, I forgot about the questions.”

“No, it’s fine. And, you know, that is how I’m doing.”

“Right. Just, um, I thought…” Jon’s face crinkles in concentration, as he tries to untangle the compulsion from his question. Probably. Martin still doesn’t fully understand this aspect of the Archivist thing outside of “questions equal answers'', and occasionally “nothing obvious still equals answers”, when Jon comes up with total non sequiturs like _That woman’s sister is moving to Australia_ when they’re out in the local village, as though he’s a spooky Sherlock Holmes. Jon can still ask questions without compelling people, but it seems to be harder for him since they left the Lonely. Lately, he’s been veering away from questions completely, rather than take the risk. Martin wants to tell him not to bother, that it’s not worth the effort playing out across his face, but he can’t pretend not to hate the realisation halfway through every answer that the compulsion has pulled out of him since they arrived. He waits.

Jon sighs, and settles on, “You’re sure you don’t want to talk about it more.” Not quite a question, but it’s there, underneath. “I know you two were..involved.”

“Involved?” Martin teases. The tension dissipates as Jon’s blush starts to creep up his neck.

“You know what I mean, Martin.”

“Yes, we were _involved_ , for a bit. You, me, Sasha - Collecting the set. Maybe he got a prize?” Martin mumbles. It’s a joke, but Jon frowns slightly. He looks impossibly earnest.

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t something like that. He-” Martin cuts him off, laughing.

“I know, Jon! I know that wasn’t it. And I really am fine, I think.”

Jon looks unconvinced, gaze flitting across Martin’s face, and Martin feels suddenly exhausted, the blankets weighing him down into the bed. He works a hand down to take Jon’s, kisses his knuckles, and says “Let’s go to sleep, yeah? We can talk about it more in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking at this for about 3 days and not changing anything so it's going on the internet! You were all lovely and kind about the last one in this series, so here's an angstier installment! (and this chapter is also a setup for chapter 2 which is shaping up to be a lot longer and is Martim focused..its coming the flashbacks are coming.....)
> 
> The book Martin's got from Daisy's shelves is After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell
> 
> Title from Ready Now by dodie...I promise not all of my titles will be (like this) but wanted to stick to the theme yknow dhbfjfh
> 
> ....I just want someone to tell Jon things weren't his fault


End file.
